A hearing impairment is an impairment in hearing, whether it is permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. Deafness is defined as a hearing impairment that is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification. Hearing loss is usually divided up into categories of severity. Those categories are slight, mild, moderate, moderate-severe, severe, and profound.
A child with a slight hearing problem can hear faint speech, but it is hard to follow. A mild hearing impairment makes classroom discussions difficult to understand. A moderate impairment makes conversation difficult to follow. A moderate-severe impairment impairs what is being heard. A severe impairment makes it difficult to follow loud conversational speech, and a profound is hearing no conversational speech at all.
As an educator, it is important to look for certain warning signs of hearing loss in the students. The following warning signs are the most common and easy to spot:
1. the child does not react when called upon
2. appears inattentive or to be daydreaming
3. mispronounces words
4. will turn television or music up extremely loud
5. the child talks too loud, you are always having to ask he/she to talk quietly
6. words spoken seem muffled or they run together
7. child is irritable, especially at the end of day (tired from repeating everything, putting forth more effort to follow along with the class, tired of being left behind)
8. child complains of ringing in the ears or a feeling of pressure in their ears
9. child feels dizzy, lack of coordination
Hearing loss can happen to anyone at any time in their life. The loss can exist in one ear or both ears. A congenital hearing loss is one that occurs and is discovered at birth. It is vital to have a baby's hearing tested before he/she is released from the hospital. An adventitious hearing loss is one that develops after birth. It can either be pre-lingual, occuring before the child learns to speak, or post-lingual, occuring after the child learns to speak. Some of the reasons for pre-lingual hearing loss include heredity, maternal rubella, and complications at birth. Some reasons for post-lingual hearing loss include meningitis, mumps, measles, medications, trauma, and constant ear infections.
An educator is required to make certain accomodations for children with hearing loss. Some of those accomodations or modifications may be collaboratiion with a specialist and parents; use amplification systems such as microphone or speakers; caption any films/videos used for instruction/recreation; have favorable seating in the class to allow students who are deaf to lip read; have another student write down notes for the hard of hearing student; always write all assignments and directions, notes, etc. on the blackboard; change format of class work in a way that benefits the child's needs; teach the rest of the classroom some common sign language prases such as thank you, yes, hello, etc; provide deaf role models; and teach about deaf studies. These modifications will enable a child with a hearing impairment to succeed in the regular classroom.
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
